Chapter 29 - Z
Dagran sighed loudly, "Still a long way to go."
"Let's keep alert. It's impossible to predict what's coming next," Mirania's face looked strained but focused. Then her stomach growled… loudly. "Oh my! H-how embarrassing…"
We all burst into laughter. Even Dagran.
"Hey, how very ladylike of you," he chuckled.
She blushed. "It's perfectly natural, so I don't see the problem," she looked off into the distance. "Besides, I don't think that I'm that hungry right now, anyway."
I smiled and rested my hand on her shoulder. "Mirania, let's focus on how to survived this place first. We'll get you something to eat later."
"You're right," she smiled. We continued walking down the path we had found after defeating the second necromancer. It wasn't terribly long, but the twists and turns made it seem like it. "Wait!" She stopped.
"I sense it too," Yurick had stopped at the same time and both of them had already started casting. "Two spirits, stay on guard."
"Two of them?" Dagran asked just as a large sword appeared out of nowhere and nearly decapitated my brother.
"DAGRAN!" I got between them just in time to block the sword with my own.
Just then Mirania screamed.
"Mirania!" Dagran bolted over to her aide.
"Son of a bitch, this is ridiculous!" I glanced over my shoulder to see Yurick almost cornered and having to use his dagger. He was good at close combat, but not that good.
"Shit," I muttered. I threw a few violent slashes at the giant skeleton that had tried to kill my brother and sprinted over to Yurick. I killed them from behind then stepped in front of him to guard him. "Are you alright?" He nodded with a quick 'yeah' then started casting again.
I took just a few steps forward to keep the other giant skeleton away from my Yurick.
"Go hit that damn necromancer and stop attacking the little guys. That's my job," he snapped as he threw a large fireball at the skeleton I was hitting, breaking him into a little pile of burnt bones.
"But-"
"Just do it, damn it!"
I ran passed the next two and straight to the mage. Every time I hit him he'd disappear and reappear on the other side. I chased him for a few more hits then finally got pissed off. I used Gale to get to him and push him into a silencing circle, thank you Mirania, and vertically slashed him. He turned into a black and purple smoke then disappeared for good.
"Finally, that's done," slashed one more time angrily at the air.
"Is it over, then?" I heard Mirania ask as Dagran walked her back over to us.
He sheathed his sword. "I hope so. But there's no point in worrying about it. Come on." He walked on ahead of us.
I fell back a bit. "Yurick, are you alright?" I reached a hand out to his arms, which were crossed in front of his chest.
"I'm fine," he shrugged me off and looked straight, avoiding eye contact with me.
"Yurick," I stretched my arm out to stop him as he tried to walk passed me. "Don't-," I wrapped my other arm around him. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried about you."
He sighed. "I suppose it's my fault for coming after you. It seems we both suck at this 'don't let it affect the job' thing," he rested his head on my shoulder. "You should probably let go of me before he yells at us."
Reluctantly, I did so. I felt a strand of his hair and frowned before turning back to the mission at hand.
When we caught up to them, Mirania's stomach growled again. "Oh! I.. er..," it had sounded like she was being attacked almost.
"Are you okay?" Yurick asked, coming up behind me. "What was that noise?"
She blushed and looked away from him. "What noise? I didn't hear any noise."
"Well, tell us if you do hear something." I wanted to laugh, but Yurick looked so serious so I just let it alone. She nodded, her face still red.
"OH!" She pointed towards the end of the path where a giant archway, much like the first one we went through, stood. "It's a dead end! Which can only mean…"
"The Realm of Ascendency," Dagran finished for her.
She ran over to it then stopped. "But how do we get in? There's no obvious gate or anything." She looked around. But then something started growling… and it wasn't her stomach this time. It was something else. Something big. "What is that?" she gasped.
"Hey! Heads up! Something's coming!" Dagran drew his sword and jumped in front of her just as a huge black circle opened on the ground and something… a shadow… started growing out of it.
"What the hell is that?!" Yurick yelled from behind me.
"It's huge and terrifying!" Mirania joined him behind us, gawking up at this huge black thing.
Dagran ran past me before I noticed why. "Its size isn't the problem! Look at it, it's far too fast for us!"
I stood my ground. "Yurick and Mirania, support us. Maybe you can silence it."
"What if we can't hit this guy either?" Yurick jumped as it started towards him. He hid behind a pillar and started casting. Just then everything went black, just for a few seconds. When the light returned, the shadow was gone.
"I can still feel it nearby… I have a terrible feeling about this," Mirania ran over to me and cast a quick heal circle.
Just then I got a sudden blow to the back of the head. I turned around as I stumbled to see my brother with eyes as black as night.
"Dagran! What the hell?!" I regained my footing and started blocking his attacks. "It's me, Dagran. Snap out of it!" I didn't want to hurt him.
"His mind has been taken over!" Mirania shouted to me.
"What do I do? I'm not going to hit him!" he kept pushing me back with every blow. I was getting dangerously close to the edge.
I barely heard her over my own thoughts. "Get him into my heal circle. He should be just fine!"
I nodded then dodged out of the way of his next attack, throwing him off balance, then grabbed the back of his jacket and redirected him towards Mirania. I threw hits I knew he could block just to back him into the circle.
I was in the middle of the last swing when he put his hand up. "Zael! It's me! Stop!"
I lowered my sword. "Thank God," I backed up and looked around. The shadow was around the edge of the platform again.
"Mirania, just a hunch, but try silencing it. It's magic, so maybe, since we can't hit a shadow," Yurick suggested casually before casting a fire circle, that didn't do much damage at all. I assume he did it to prove a point.
"I'll give it a try. It should work," she nodded and cast. Green shot passed my head and hit the giant black thing. It wailed in pain then fell onto the ground. "Quick!"
Dagran and I ran over and slashed at it like crazy. After a few more rounds of this, it finally went off screaming until it disappeared out of existence. When all was still, we started looking around.
"So this is the Realm of Ascendancy," I muttered. Just as I'd said it, a stone tablet came out of the ground in the middle. It looked like a tombstone almost. It had the shape of an eye in the centre surrounded by dots. "So, Dagran, what now?" but before he could say anything the grounds started shaking. It was like my feet were throbbing so hard that I could barely stand, but it wasn't enough of a shake to knock me over.
"A pulse?" Mirania started looking around to find out where it might be coming from.
"Something is definitely happening," Yurick added and followed her lead.
Then the eye on the stone tablet started glowing. I looked straight into it and felt incredibly light headed.
